I'm clearing my desk to get ready for travel on Wednesday to Vancouver. That's of course where the American Immigration Lawyers Association is holding its annual conference. One of the panels will be an open forum with the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL).

As most in the immigration world know, the DOL is very concerned about fraud in the immigration process. No ethical employers or lawyers would deny the importance of deterring fraud, and truly bad apples of course need to be removed from the barrel.

But when DOL targets reputable lawyers and law firms and audits all of their clients for alleged conduct that the agency belatedly acknowledges is within the proper scope of the attorney-client relationship, then the objective of fraud-deterrence is actually impaired rather than facilitated. Moreover, when the agency in the name of "program integrity" or "reform" seeks to minimize the role of lawyers, while continuing to promote a deeply-flawed PERM system and tolerate a role for unlicensed agents (consultants and notarios), then something is definitely wrong in Bureacracyland.

For background on the controversy, check out today's article, co-authored by Ted J. Chiappari and me, in the New York Law Journal's "Immigration Column," available at this link on my other blog - www.nationofimmigrators.com. (By the way, the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines "tizzy" as "a highly excited and distracted state of mind." After reviewing the article, you, dear readers, can decide if the label is apt.)

So, if you're heading to the DOL Open Forum AILA panel in Vancouver, maybe you'll think of a polite question or two for the DOL representatives.

Welcome to Angelo Paparelli's new immigration blog, courtesy of ILW.COM. My hosts, Sam Udani and friends, may not realize it but they've given me a wonderful way, not merely to vent my frustrations with America's dysfunctional immigration system, but also to avoid psychotherapy. The immigration-related outrages we immigration lawyers and other patriotic Americans see every day can lead to a host of psychosomatic maladies -- dyspepsia, high blood pressure, stress-induced anger and tears, neurosis and who knows what else.

This blog, therefore, will serve for me, and I hope for you, as a holistic form of therapeutic wellness. When I comment upon, or you share, the next new perverse, ironic, laughable, tragic or just plain stupid immigration development, let us openly call it what it is, and offer a suggested solution. Let us help cure the body politic as we recall the wise counsel of Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis:Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman.